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Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Time to tackle another of the long-running SoftSide Publications adventure series. This is actually the first game in the series, Arabian Adventure, written in BASIC by Peter Kirsch and published in June of 1981 for the Atari 400/800 and Apple II home computers.

I'll be playing the Atari edition here. After a colorful title banner, the game opens with a brief plot summary and a Scott Adams-style introduction of the basic concept of the text adventure:

The plotline is nothing new -- Princess Jasmine has been kidnapped by the evil wizard Rex, and the player must destroy the wizard in his castle and rescue the Princess. The Arabian setting isn't particularly realistic or innovative -- the standard accoutrements include a magic lamp and a flying carpet. And the two-word parser is fairly primitive -- in fact, in lieu of a more bugproof solution, the onscreen introduction carefully warns us not to carry or drop more than one key in the same place, as there are several such keys and the game's dictionary has no way to distinguish between them. But the text is more lengthy and evocative than the era's norm, and the fantasy Middle Eastern map is extensive and fun to explore.

As always, I encourage interested readers to tackle this Arabian Adventure for themselves before proceeding here, though players should be aware that this one has no save game feature. And in the interest of historical documentation, there are certain to be...

***** SPOILERS AHEAD! *****

We are standing in a courtyard as the game starts, and we immediately hear a scream from the palace. This is meant to set the plot into motion, but we can wander around the nearby marketplace indefinitely before investigating; we can still hear the scream from quite a distance, though, just in case we've forgotten our mission. We can also explore the rooms of the palace before making our way upstairs to the scream's apparent source. And no matter how long we've dawdled, we always arrive in the princess' chambers just in time: You run to the window and just manage to see Princess Jasmine flown off on a giant roc in the grasp of Rex, wizard of darkness.

The marketplace streets are lined with remarkably poorly-stocked establishments -- each only carries one item. There's a Pawn Shoppe, an Olde Rug Shoppe, a modernistic Fruit and Vegetable Shoppe Shop, and a Pottery Shoppe. We can GO SHOPPE in each of these locations, but can't actually BUY anything or TALK to the merchants. However, trying to GET the lonely items on display prompts a price quote in riyals -- we learn that the rug costs 5 riyals, the coconut 10, and the clay saucer 10. It seems the local economy features very cheap rugs, or very expensive dining, but as we have no money to begin with all of these items are initially out of reach.

There's a HEAVY ROCK on the beach, and we can actually GET ROCK without a struggle for a change. Taking inventory discovers that we are also carrying an ARABIAN SWORD IN SHEATH, likely to come in handy at some point.

In the Pawn Shoppe, we can try to PAWN ROCK, but of course the Pawnbroker says: ROCK is not worth pawning. If we try to PAWN SWORD, the game insists that You're not carrying it; experimentation establishes that we can DRAW SWORD and PUT (not SHEATH) SWORD, but we can never DROP either the sword or the sheath. So our limited five-slot inventory is at least partially taken up by a trusty weapon we can never get rid of, leading to some juggling later on. At least while the sword is sheathed it only consumes one slot.

We're too late to save the princess, but her unmade bed, the open window and a brass lamp are of potential interest. GET BED yields something slightly different from the standard response -- Be reasonable now. That's impossible. -- but we can't PUSH, PULL, LIFT or MOVE it either. It simply stands as evidence of the Princess' poor housekeeping habits. We can't go through the open window or pawn the brass lamp either. So we're initially at a bit of a loss; I did discover that, despite this game's vintage, we can't trick the dictionary to discover what nouns it knows about -- GET[object] just says There's no [object] here.

Of course, remembering the game's setting, it soon develops that we can RUB LAMP. A genie appears and hands us a RARE ARABIAN RIYAL, and we can PAWN RIYAL to get 5 standard-issue riyals in exchange, and thus buy the rug.

Once we have the rug, we can drop it on the ground and GO RUG to find ourselves sitting on the rug. But I got stuck at this point for a while as I couldn't figure out how to get back off of it. We can't STAND UP or GET OFF or EXIT RUG. We can't even QUIT or SAVE GAME (the game supports neither of these options -- it's win or die.) I finally figured out that we have to SAY FLY to travel -- we disembark automatically after we reach our destination. The rug travels between the palace courtyard and a desert -- once we've discovered its secret, we can't TAKE RUG any more, so it's a good thing there aren't any rug thieves about.

Adventure games often have odd amalgamations of geography; in this case, the desert abuts a beach, a forest, and some mountains.

Arabian Adventure seems to be inspired by the Ray Harryhausen Sinbad movies, but we also encounter a bit from Jason and the Argonauts, as we find that 6 Skeletons stand gaurd [sic] with swords drawn in front of a mountain cave. I tried to KILL SKELETONS, but You forgot to draw your sword! You have been slain! We have to DRAW SWORD and KILL all six, one at a time in what proves to be a very drawn-out battle.

Success is random, but I never died in the process, and eventually we reach the point where 1 Skeletons [sic] stand gaurd, and then none. Now we can enter the cave, where we will encounter an immediate cave-in, so it's wise to visit the forest nearby and pick up the roll of TWINE before doing so. We should also drop any excess belongings outside, as once we escape the cave we can't reenter it.

There are no truly dark locations in the game, so we never need to LIGHT LAMP. The cave is well-lit enough for us to find an AXE and a BAMBOO FISHING POLE in a very tight opening. That doesn't sound comfortable, but both are useful items.

A tall chamber in the cave has stairs going up, leading to a room with a locked chest, a horsehoe magnet and a hole in the wall. We can escape through the hole and climb down the mountain, but the roc picks us up and drops us back inside the cave. Carrying the heavy rock does not discourage the huge bird -- no rhyming "hints" here -- but carrying the axe apparently does. I think this is just a little assist to keep the player from leaving the cave without some critical items needed to finish the game.

Inside the cave, we find what's described as the SHALLOW 'SEA OF DECEIVE', and we espy an iron key at the bottom of this sea. But a simple GET KEY results in drowning -- the Sea of Deceive is a trap, of course, as the water is actually ten feet deep, not shallow as stated. It seems we might want to use the twine to dangle the magnet from the bamboo pole, to fish the iron key out of the Sea of Deceive. But TIE TWINE and TIE MAGNET yield only You can't do that now. We have to have the twine, magnet and bamboo pole in inventory -- then we can TIE MAGNET to produce a MAGNET TIED TO POLE, and now GET KEY has a much more positive result.

The chest has 20 Arabian riyals in it, and the merchants back in town are willing to make change, so now we can go back and buy the saucer and the coconut. There is, at this point in the story, no obvious reason to do so, but as this is an adventure game and the totals suspiciously align, we should probably do what we can with the resources at hand.

Most items in this adventure have a single use, so we can drop each of them once it's served its purpose. We can drop the axe after we've used it in the forest to CHOP TREE, yielding 4 CHOPPED TREES. We can't GET CHOPPED or GET TREES or GET 4, but we can BUILD RAFT and carry it to the beach, where a BOAT PADDLE lies conveniently nearby.

Now we can drop the raft and GO RAFT to board it. Navigating while on the raft actually moves among various rooms in which we're Sailing the Wrestling Seas, the Wicked Seas or the Whispering Seas. Eventually a huge green sea monster arrives, threatening our crude raft and blocking all paths. Drawing our sword to KILL MONSTER causes it to back off, and after much repetition finally kills it. We can sometimes avoid the creature altogether, if we are lucky, by sailing quickly to the east after we launch the raft.

Once ashore, we are informed that our raft is done for, and we encounter a monstrous Cyclops who tends to strangle us. If we run west and climb all the way to the top of Cyclops Mountain, though... well, that doesn't do anything obviously useful. Hmmmm. We still can't KILL CYCLOPS, and throwing various objects at him doesn't do anything either. If we GO MOUNTAIN once more from the top, we somehow end up sailing the Whispering Seas again, even without a raft, and can maneuver safely to the shore. But the Cyclops is just waiting for us again, apparently having run down the mountain while we were making our way back.

I got stuck here, and finally took a peek at the source code to discover that we apparently need a banana peel. And that we have to obtain it by eating a banana. Which is not available in the Fruit and Vegetable Shop. We get this useful fruit by executing a RUB LAMP again at the top of mountain, causing the Genie to reappear and hand us a banana, for no apparent or predictable reason. But we can now EAT BANANA to get the peel, DROP PEEL,andsend the Cyclops tumbling down the mountain, never to be seen again.

Now we can reach the Wizard's Palace at last, and climb up to the tower, to find the Princess miniaturized and held in a tiny cage. A flashing sword appears, apparently floating in thin air, and the palace front door is locked after this point. The finale is upon us.

Fortunately, the wizard's floating sword is not immediately fatal, nor does it follow us with any great degree of urgency or accuracy, so we can take time to explore the rest of the palace in search of puzzle solutions. There's a lasso in the small dungeon downstairs, some flour in the kitchen, a book and some strange white powder in the alchemist's chamber. The book tells us we must mix the white powder and milk together in a dark place to restore the Princess to life size.

A nasty-looking tarantula guards a tiny key in the wizard's sleeping chamber. We can borrow the Princess' hand mirror from the tower, and DROP MIRROR to transfix the spider with unrequited love for his own image, so that we can GET KEY and rescue the imprisoned (though still miniature) Princess Jasmine.

We can THROW FLOUR to make the wizard visible -- this is an invisible, impressively hands-on villain, no magical swords or enchanted ghost warriors here -- and KILL WIZARD with far greater ease than any of the other creatures we've encountered. The dead enchanter drops a large key, which we can use to escape the wizard's palace.

This seems a good time to mix the coconut milk and the powder in the clay saucer, per the book's recipe. PUT POWDER helpfully yields Pour milk first. And we need our old friend the HEAVY ROCK to split the coconut. But the potion spoils easily here in the wizard's place -- all the rooms are too brightly lit to mix the potion, it seems, even in the dungeon.

This is actually okay, because as it turns out it's fairly convenient to take the Princess home in miniature. We have to THROW LASSO to catch the roc, who carries us back to the beach; use the carpet to make our way back to the Princess' palace; and mix the recipe in the dark cellar there to restore her to normal size. Victory is ours!

I enjoyed the Arabian Adventure, though without access to the source code I might have found it frustrating in a few nonsensical spots. To save others the more significant headaches, I'm providing my walkthrough below the fold and have also uploaded it to the CASA Solution Archive.